King Ranch Chicken

Waldemar girls - get ready to drool, because you know what I'm talking about. Growing up, King Ranch Chicken was an absolute star dish at girl's camp on Saturdays. Soupy would ring, and girls would sprint to the Dining Hall, hoping to be first to enter the screen doors to get a break from the Texas heat. Back for siesta we would walk, stuffed, and ready for a mid-summers nap.

Am I right?

Well today, in the spirit of Texas nostalgia, I couldn't get this dish out of my mind. Though it's anything but a hot Texas summer day here in Cambridge today, King Ranch Chicken was calling my name. I needed to make something warm... cozy... comforting for my Hubby who was feeling under the weather. What better dish than this? It's equal parts creamy, spicy and delicious. Sure to satisfy hungry tummies everywhere, any time of year.

Warm it up in the winter with soft flour tortillas. Cool it down in the summer with a crisp wedge salad.

You just can't go wrong with this. From Hubby's Southern Living cookbook.

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 tbsp veg. oil
2 C cooked chicken, chopped/shredded
1 can cream of chicken soup (shhh!)
1 can cream of mushroom soup (double shhh!)
1 can Rotel (tomato and green chile)
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp cumin (my special addition)
6 flour tortillas (this is where SL and I disagree... flour is much more hearty for this big-flavor dish. Plus, that's the way we ate it at camp)
2 C shredded cheddar cheese
Pat of butter to grease baking dish

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.
Cook chicken (however you want... make sure it is seasoned and tender).
In large skillet over medium heat (maybe even your dutch oven), saute green bell pepper and onion until tender.
Chop/shred chicken once cooked (I used my shears to get it down to small bites) and add to onion/bell pepper.
Add cream of chicken soup, cream of mushroom soup, Rotel, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, cumin to the chicken/onion/bell pepper.
Stir together over medium/low heat.
Lightly butter a 9x13 baking dish.
Tear tortillas into 1" strips and line the bottom of the baking dish.
Next, add 1/2 the King Ranch Chicken mixture and then cover with 1/2 the amount of cheese.
Repeat this two times (to make two total layers).
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
Serve and enjoy! SL says you can freeze this for up to a month, which rules, so take advantage! As for me, no more cooking till we get to Dallas later this week. This recipe makes a ton!

They're here!

Oh What Fun Christmas Card

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Happiness and Cheer

Christmas time is here! These are a few of my favorite things (in no particular order):

Poinsettias

Sparkly ornaments

Festive Dishtowels (please note the brown/yellow cuteness Hubby's momma made for me! I love it so much that I force my other linens to match it, regardless of season)

And the sure-tell sign it is Christmas at our house...the arrival of Mrs. Hanes' Moravian Cookies! It is always the first treat to arrive and signals the official start to our season. They are sent each and every year (for as long as I can remember in my 25 years!) by my sweet Aunt Barbara. The delicate stacks of cookies come wrapped in tissue paper inside a bright red tin. I always imagine that Mrs. Hanes has made them just for me! What could be more cheerful? Sugar crisps, ginger crisps... I'm not sure which is my favorite, but what I do know, is that they never last quite until Christmas between Hubby and me - these cookies + a sip of eggnog make our favorite midnight snack :)

Look who already settled down for a long winter's nap!

P.S. Shutterfly notified me that our Christmas cards are almost here!!! We received the return address labels, so here's a little preview of what's to come...

Can't wait to get the actual cards off and in the mail to our fams :) Remember last year's l-a-t-e card connundrum?

And no, that's not our real address, don't worry. Though it would be cool to live in unit 007.

My Try at Festive Pie

Paula's pie was a success. It's just too bad my crust decorations weren't quite up to par... let me tell you what I'm talking about.

I got over-ambitious when preparing our pie and decided to add a little decor.

First, I decided to add a some festive holly:

So far, so good. I think I'll make a turkey. A pilgrim turkey!

Yikes. Is it obvious this started off as a baby bird? I decided that looked a little too Spring-ish, though, thus the turkey transformation.

All was (fairly) fine and well...

Until I popped it into the oven and realized: I should have baked the topping decorations separately. But it was just too late.

So it really could have been worse, but as you can see, many of my painstaking details were lost. As the pie expanded, the unbaked crust did not. It didn't get that nice golden crispness that the rest of the crust has. In a perfect world, I would've baked the hollies and turkey on a baking sheet and placed atop the pie once both were baked fully.

You can also notice some sinkage:

Anyway, I don't mean to undermine the deliciousness of Paula's Pumpkin Pie. It's a cross between cheesecake and pumpkin pie, which gives it a nice richness you pumpkin pie-phobes might desire, while adding a special savory element to the classic version. And, of course, the perfect pie crust worked like a charm.

We had a great time visiting our family, nonetheless! We had a beautiful and delicious meal prepared by my Aunt, and even celebrated three special birthdays. Good thing we didn't actually put 91 candles on the cake...

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving too! Dixie sure did and she's still recovering from our big touch-football game last Friday.

Rough life!


*Addendum* Please note my BFF Emily's masterpiece:

Now we're talking!

**Addendum 2** no fair using cookie-cutters/do we have the same Emile Henry Auberge Pie Dish?? LOVE! I am working my way to a complete set of the line :)

Giving Thanks

Be joyful and give thanks today! As Hubby and Dixie and I drive to Uncle Mikey's house for our East-Coast Thanksgiving, we are thinking of our families and friends back home and in other states and send our love to you all.

"Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him." Ephesians 1: 3-4

White (Dallas?!) Christmas and Breakfast Strudel

After a stormy Christmas Eve, we awoke to this fresh winter wonderland! We hardly knew what to do with the white stuff, and I even had a good old fashioned seat-drop fall while taking little Dixie on her first snow-walk (yikes!).

Back inside, we were nice and cozy, and the Christmas morning traditions resumed. Hubby and I joined my parents for the morning, and his folks later that night. For the a.m. portion, Dad and I got to work on the annual breakfast strudel (we open presents after we eat, of course):

First, scramble the eggy yumminess on the stove (eggs, hash browns, diced ham, onions, bell pepper) until almost fully cooked. Let cool in pan while you roll out puff pasty sheets and prepare them for special wrapping:

Add eggy yumminess to center of pastry dough:

Wrap it up nice and tight:

Use extra dough to make cute decorations! Sometimes we spell "NOEL," or "JOY" too:

Brush with egg wash and sprinkle liberally with Parmesan cheese:

Bake at 350 for 20ish minutes until golden. The slice on the bias:

Serve and enjoy! Here's mom's beautimus Christmas brunch tablescape:

I was also really digging the cranberry-filled decanters. Cheerful and elegant at the same time:

Who doesn't love a Stein's Bakery treat? (Our favorite delivery of the year - thanks, Baker fam!)

And Pitman & Davis grapefruits? Heavenly!

Mom broils ours with brown sugar and coconut on top.

Such is the bliss of our traditional Christmas morning!

I hope you and yours had a blessed one as well. Here's to another fun year in 2010!